


a helping hand

by desitonystark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Indian Tony Stark, M/M, One Armed Bucky Barnes, homoerotic shaving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25711528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desitonystark/pseuds/desitonystark
Summary: Bucky wants to shave his beard. Tony helps.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 81





	a helping hand

**Author's Note:**

> i know im doing AU-gust and i said i wouldn't be writing anything else, but i couldn't help myself.

Bucky rubs his chin morosely, and briefly entertains the idea of shaving himself. Of course, the idea doesn’t last long, because he might be an assassin, but HYDRA didn’t add _shaving with one arm_ to his requisite skill set. 

“Miss FRIDAY?” he calls out, tilting his head up even though Tony has explained to him more than once that she isn’t located there, “Do you think you could call Tony for me?”

“Of course,” her Irish lilt filters through the speakers, “Should I ask Sir to bring a shaving kit with him?”

Bucky smiles, “That would be nice thank you.”

He leans against the granite sink-top, the edge of it digging into the flesh of his back while he waits for Tony. It doesn’t take him long, but when Tony does arrive - Bucky feels a flush of guilt. He’s still in a suit, tie half undone and still hung around his neck, and sleeves not yet folded back.

“Fry said you needed me?” Tony asks, holding up a shaving kit, and Bucky nods. 

“I want to get rid of it,” he gestures to his molten beard, “and I can’t uhh..” he trails off, waving his stump in explanation. Tony’s face softens, but there’s no pity in his expression. There never is with Tony.

“Okay!” he claps his hands, and then furrows his brows, “how’re we going to do this? I suppose you could sit up on the counter-top, but you’ll have to duck a bit.”

Bucky bites his tongue at the obvious quip about his height - if only because Tony is about to hold a blade to his neck - and rests his one flesh arm against the cold surface as leverage while he hops off the floor and onto the counter. 

Tony smoothly steps closer to him, and nudges at his thighs until Bucky spreads them and he can step between them. The air in the room feels like it’s been sucked out, and Tony is close enough that Bucky can count each individual lash. 

Tony leans up and presses a soft kiss to his lips, before wetting his hands and rubbing it all over Bucky’s beard, wetting the strands. He shakes the can a couple of times before spraying the shaving cream into a bowl, ignoring the way Bucky quirks his eyebrow in a silent question.

“My _thatha_ used to do this every week,” Tony says conversationally, adding a splash of water into the bowl and mixing it with a coarse brush. Placing it down on the counter next to Bucky, he grasps Bucky’s chin so that he can move it. 

“I used to be so fascinated by it,” he continues, gently rubbing the brush in concentric circles around Bucky’s chin and under his neck, “And he promised me that he’d teach me how to shave with a straight razor.”

“One summer,” there’s a slight _snick_ where the blade connects to his skin, and he glances down to see Tony wipe it against a towel he’s draped across his shoulder, but doesn’t dare move his head, “I went to stay with him and my _Ajji_ in Mysore, and he took me through it - for the entire summer. I can’t tell you how many cuts I got that summer, all over my face.”

His face wrinkles slightly, “It was the absolute worst, I looked like Clint on a good day - plasters across every angle of my face because my _Ajji_ didn’t want me to accidentally attract mosquitos by bleeding everywhere.”

The fingers on his chin pull his face down and to the side, and Bucky feels the press of metal near his ear, “but by the end of it - I learnt how to use a straight razor. I’ve never used anything else.”

“You shave with a straight razor?” Bucky says in a surprised tone, forgetting that he isn’t supposed to talk. Tony moves back slightly and looks at him with a crinkled expression, “Is that really so surprising?”

“I just -” Bucky falters, “I didn’t realise you could do all that with a straight razor. Figured you’d designed your own electric razor that did it for you.”

Tony doesn’t laugh, but his eyes squint in that way that Bucky’s come to recognise is amusement, “I can do it for you if you want,” he waggles his eyebrows, “we can be a matching set.”

Bucky pretends to ponder this for all of five seconds, “I think I’d go with the clean-shaven look if that’s alright with you.”

Tony sighs, looking incredibly put out, but he rinses the blade and brings it back up to Bucky’s jawline, so he thinks that he’s forgiven. The bathroom is silent apart from the movement of the blade, and the occasional drip of water when Tony opens up the tap to run the razor under it. It’s not stifling though, more familiar and intimate. 

Bucky’s eyes drift shut, falling completely pliant into Tony’s hands and letting him move his face as he pleases. It isn’t until he hears the blade snap shut that he opens his eyes again, and it’s to the sight of Tony wetting a new towel under the sink.

He brushes the wet cloth onto Bucky’s jaw and under his chin in soft but sure strokes, before discarding it on the floor. 

“All done,” he says in a quiet tone, hand reaching out to cup Bucky’s face almost on instinct. His thumb rubs against Bucky’s now smooth skin, and he leans into it shamelessly.

“How do I look?” he asks, and Tony replies, “like a million bucks.”

He wraps his calves around Tony’s back and nudges his forward with the back of his heels, using the momentum of Tony jerking forward to pull him in for a kiss. The hands around his neck tighten as his own fingers find their way into Tony’s locks. 

When he pulls back, there’s a faint blush on Tony’s dark skin, and his eyes are blown black.

“What was that for?” Tony asks, and Bucky cocks his head, “I need a reason to kiss my fella?”

“No, I meant, why’d you stop?”

And what else is Bucky supposed to do but pull him back in for a kiss? And another, and another. Until he can scarcely breathe.

_Fin_

**Author's Note:**

> thatha - paternal grandfather  
> ajji - grandmother (this is used for both paternal and maternal grandmothers)  
> Mysore - a city in the State of Karnataka, India  
> Edit: a reader very helpfully pointed out that I'd written Bucky with one metal arm instead of one flesh arm, so that has since been corrected!!  
> [tumblr saw it first](https://ad1thi.tumblr.com/post/625535687740063744/a-helping-hand)  
> [my ig](https://www.instagram.com/desi_tonystark/)  
> 


End file.
